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Celebrating Digital LifeFri, 17 Jul 2015 14:38:49 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.2NextConferencehttps://feedburner.google.comCompanies attending NEXT15http://feeds.sinnerschrader.de/~r/NextConference/~3/62d-5C_IIxQ/
http://nextconf.eu/2015/07/participants/#commentsFri, 17 Jul 2015 11:48:30 +0000http://nextconf.eu/?p=30444NEXT15 is a gathering of decision makers from companies with a digital agenda, executives of the digital economy and innovative start-ups. Many relevant companies will be represented at NEXT15. Get a first impression by scanning this list.

]]>NEXT15 is a gathering of decision makers from companies with a digital agenda, executives of the digital economy and innovative start-ups. We’ll create a space, in which our participants can exchange thoughts about the challenges and opportunities of a progressing digitalisation, inspiring each other in the process.

Many relevant German companies will be represented at NEXT15. Get a first impression by scanning this list. Do you want to add your name to the list, too? Please apply for a ticket here.

We are looking forward to welcoming participants of these companies at NEXT15

]]>All signs point to Apple Pay hitting the UK – its first additional market outside the US – this week (and possibly tomorrow). Exciting times for those of us within the UK with relatively modern Apple kit. (My iPhone 5S can’t do it – but my Apple Watch can.)

As services like Apple Pay shine a spotlight on the idea of paying for stuff without pulling out your wallet, UK credit card Barclaycard is introducing a new bPay-branded wristband, key fob and sticker that enable British shoppers to make contactless payments with a simple tap.

Barclays has apparently done an about-face and announced that it will provide “imminent” support of Apple Pay in the UK in the near future.

Don’t go there alone

But why do so many companies try to do these sorts of initiatives for themselves, rather than participate in a common platform? Well, at one level it makes perfect sense. Each bank has always provided its own cards – why shouldn’t it provide its own NFC payment system?

The flaw in that argument can best be summed up by this graphic:

Realistically, who is going to buy a wristband just for payments? Or a key fob? It makes so much more sense for the payments system to be incorporated in something the customer is already carrying – like a phone, watch or fitness tracker.

Most of us crave slimmer wallets, as the bloat of payment and loyalty cards makes them ever larger. The migration of those cards towards the phone is a positive boon, and one few are likely to give up for the clutter of multiple wristbands and fobs for different services.

Escaping corporate tunnel vision

But it’s very easy to see the world from the point of view of your corporate. “Hey, they carry our card! Why wouldn’t they carry our fob?” But that’s too narrow a view point. There are other factors here, like the phone slowly replacing the wallet in total, rather than a single payment method taking on a more digital form.

That’s not to say that there won’t be any opportunities for bPay – after all, not everyone has a smartphone, or a modern enough smartphone, to make the transition just yet. But that feels like a rapidly diminishing community – and thus a shrinking market opportunity.

Far better, then, to support the platforms out there – but be neutral about which ones you do support. Many of those more price-sensitive consumer who don’t yet have a smartphone will come into the market via Android, not Apple…

This switch from web design to experience design is directly caused by the shift from web pages to digital products, tools, and ecosystems. Web pages are just part of something much bigger: mobile apps, API’s, social media presence, search engine optimization, customer service channels, and physical locations all inform the experience a user has with a brand, product, or service. Pretending that you can run a business or deliver value just by taking care of the web channel is naïve at best and harmful at worst.

The core idea here – that the web is just one expression of digital business in a mobile age – is a fascinating and compelling one. It reminds me of the issues often discusses at the NEXT Service Design events in the past.

]]>http://nextconf.eu/2015/07/rip-web-design-the-era-of-experience-design-is-nigh/feed/0http://nextconf.eu/2015/07/rip-web-design-the-era-of-experience-design-is-nigh/Good news: free European data roaming is cominghttp://feeds.sinnerschrader.de/~r/NextConference/~3/hudst0B3emw/
http://nextconf.eu/2015/07/good-news-free-european-data-roaming-is-coming/#commentsMon, 06 Jul 2015 11:15:23 +0000http://nextconf.eu/?p=30266The European Parliament has agreed to kill roaming charges in Europe by 2017 - and that matters for digital businesses across the continent.

]]>As June ended, a new era began for digital Europe. A deal was struck that should change the way we think about digital services across the continent:

In the early hours of 30 June 2015, after 12 hours of negotiation, the Latvian presidency reached a provisional deal with the European Parliament on new rules to end mobile phone roaming fees and safeguard open internet access, also known as net neutrality rules. For the Council, the agreement still has to be confirmed by member states.

Why does this matter? Well, the multi-national, multi-lingual nature of Europe has always made it a more challenging environment for digital businesses than, for example, the USA. In America, users can freely roam across the country, using their phones at the same rate.

While the multi-lingual challenges remain for Europe, phone users will soon be able to freely use their mobile devices in other countries in much the same way as they do their home nation. My local provider in the UK – Three – has had a benefit called “Feel At Home”, which allowed me to use my phone as if I was at home in the US, Hong Kong and France last year (but not Germany, sadly). It changes a traveller’s attitude to phone use quite dramatically, and that’s got to be a good things for any business which is relevant to business or pleasure travellers as they move across Europe.

It’s one less barrier to European digital business achieving scale – and that’s something we should get excited about.

]]>The days when discussion about tech were all about business applications have long passed. The last decade has seen such a paid consumerisation of tech, that some of the giants of the pst have really struggled. BlackBerry’s woes are well-documented, and IBM is now in a business alliance with its old enemy Apple, to bring business apps to Apple’s consumer-centric kit.

And what about Microsoft? The long-term business technology leader now seems to want to play in consumer tech, too – but under new CEO Satya Nadella, it seems to be slowly getting its business mojo back. How about high-tech eyewear for the police?

Robert Hogg, founder and MD of custom development and consultancy firm Black Marble, which specialises in Microsoft platforms, explained that his firm “will be delivering HoloLens to [UK police forces] as soon as we can. We can do some amazing things with the technology”.

People who are familiar with that other famous bit of kit – Google Glass – might shudder at the idea of police walking the beat with tech eyewear on. That’s not the idea, though.

A Microsoft spokesperson later told Computing that, while it’s unlikely that members of the forces will go out on the beat wearing the slightly cumbersome devices in the near future, the technology could well be used in the recreation of crime scenes.

And that sounds like a remarkably good idea. Anything that makes the real world a little more like the borderline scoff of CSI gets my vote…

Breaking up with consumers

It’s interesting that even Microsoft’s marketing materials for Hololens – like the image above – suggest a consumer device. Yet, as with Google Glass, the real potential here seems to be as much about specialist application in the workplace, as a general consumer play.

There remains a huge potential business in selling technology solutions to business, yet the Apple-envy that has understandably gripped the tech world since the company’s rise to dominance has locked the discussion too firmly centred on consumer IT. Yes, the needle used to be too far in the other direction, and business technology paid no attention to the experience customers were getting home, leading to too many vendors getting way with charging a premium for an inferior experience. And the arrival of consumer tech in businesses is helping correct that.

But wouldn’t it be nice to see a few more companies celebrating their focus on making business life better?

]]>http://nextconf.eu/2015/06/augmented-reality-crime-scenes-when-business-tech-gets-exciting/feed/0http://nextconf.eu/2015/06/augmented-reality-crime-scenes-when-business-tech-gets-exciting/The smart home skirmishes beginhttp://feeds.sinnerschrader.de/~r/NextConference/~3/FVxXbSLew6o/
http://nextconf.eu/2015/06/smart-home-platforms-google-apple/#commentsMon, 22 Jun 2015 14:26:19 +0000http://nextconf.eu/?p=30191A new battleground is opening up between Google and Apple: the smart home, For once, though, it's not a winner-takes-all game.

]]>There are times when you have to admire Google’s bravery – or thick skin. The privacy – or otherwise – of cloud-stored services still a big topic internationally, with the Electronic Frontier Foundation recently giving Google just 3 stars (of five) in its recent privacy scorecard.

It’s a revised and rebranded version of Dropcam, which Google acquired last year. The new version is a rather elegant WiFi-enabled 1080p security camera with good night vision and motion sensing.

Security cameras are useful things – and, as the image suggests, of particular interest to parents who want to keep a careful eye on their young children. But there’s a strange lack of comfort in allowing that sort of intimate look at your home to be facilitated by a company whose business revolves around harvesting data about us intelligently- and who can be compelled to release some of that information to governments. Are we blindly installing spy cams in our homes?

The quiet war to smarten your home

However unsettling the privacy issues might be, home automation feels like a field which, while people aren’t paying close attention to it, is moving fast. A month ago, a whole load of smart home products were announced in one go, with one thing in common: they all support Apple’s HomeKit standard for home automation. Product like the Elgato Eve series of home sensors or ecobee3 smart thermostat claim to offer the same sort of interoperability as the Nest range – but from different manufacturers. How? It’s all mediated through Apple’s software – with the AppleTV acting as the hub.

This is a strange reversal of the normal order of things, where Apple pushes a range of connected hardware, while Google offers a platform others can use. Here, Apple has a hardware-free platform play and, while Google has its own platform for smart homes – with Brillo and Weave, it’s going down the hardware angle.

However, there’s a distinct difference in ambition here. Apple’s Homekit is a home automation system, as the very name suggests. Google’s effort has a wider objective:

“You can imagine a farmer managing the entire farm from a smartphone, the security cameras, the sensors, the irrigation equipment. All of them can be connected so that it works better together.”

That’s Sundar Pichai, Google’s head of Android. It’s designed to be a much more central platform for the wider Internet of Things.

It’s easy to forget that Apple is still, at its heart, a consumer company. It may have plans to push the fundamental tech behind HomeKit in much wider directions, into a system that could help facilitate the smart city and the smart workplace, rather than the smart home. But for now, Google seems to have the lead in that.

What’s heartening is that – right now – neither of these tech giants appear to be trying to claim this emergent space for themselves. There’s plenty of space for the rest of us to create product that talk to one or other of these systems – or, feasibly, both.

And we’re far more likely to see a truly connected world if many companies are creating the smart city, rather than just these two giants.

On the other hand I find myself increasingly excited by what seems to be a growing amount of small businesses that seem to be based on spawning physical artifacts from digital beginnings – frequently personalised or unique and with a ‘long tail’ audience they use the thinking and tools of the Silicon Valley start-up world, the inventive nature of the ‘maker’ community and take advantage of new flexbilities (and capacity) in manufacturing/production to create a new kind of market.

If you’re looking for an example, frequent NEXT speaker Makies is a perfect representation of the idea…

Google today announced the formation of Sidewalk Labs, an urban innovation company that will develop technology at the intersection of the physical and digital worlds, with a focus on improving city life for residents, businesses and governments.

Smart Cities are what you get when many of the current trends – internet of things, autonomous cars, 3D Printing and pervasive sensors – come together. But if they’re to reach their potential, we need some co-ordinated action on them. Looks like Google is walking that sidewalk.

Dan Doctoroff, the former CEO of Bloomberg LP and Deputy Mayor of Economic Development and Rebuilding for the City of New York, and now CEO of Sidewalk labs said:

“We are at the beginning of a historic transformation in cities. At a time when the concerns about urban equity, costs, health and the environment are intensifying, unprecedented technological change is going to enable cities to be more efficient, responsive, flexible and resilient.”

These are big, complex but ultimately human-created systems. That the great brains of technology are considering how to improve them is good news.

]]>http://nextconf.eu/2015/06/google-targets-smart-cities-infrastructure/feed/0http://nextconf.eu/2015/06/google-targets-smart-cities-infrastructure/Joint Sessions for NEXT15 and Reeperbahn Festivalhttp://feeds.sinnerschrader.de/~r/NextConference/~3/73Bm-_NH2VA/
http://nextconf.eu/2015/06/joint-sessions-for-next15-and-reeperbahn-festival/#commentsThu, 04 Jun 2015 10:45:39 +0000http://nextconf.eu/?p=30002In addition to our exclusive NEXT programme, we will join forces with the Reeperbahn Festival Conference for some combined sessions with topics of interest to marketers and music professionals alike. Here are the first speakers

]]>We’ll be announcing our first NEXT15 speakers shortly. Their task: To showcase different aspects of HOW WE WILL LIVE with a strong focus on the consumers.

In addition to our exclusive NEXT programme, we will join forces with the Reeperbahn Festival Conference for some combined sessions with topics of interest to marketers and music professionals alike. With your NEXT15 ticket, you will be able to fully participate in the concert and conference programme of the Reeperbahn Festival. (But – beware – the Reeperbahn Festival Conference ticket does not include the NEXT programme.)

In our joint sessions, NEXT and Reeperbahn Festival Conference will welcome, among others, Daniel Müllensiefen from the Department of Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London. He explores how music works subconsciously in advertising and will focus his talk on music, brains and what makes our synapses dance.

How do we perceive and memorise music and melodies? What role does music play as a selling tool in brand advertising? What’s the secret recipe of sticky songs? Daniel Müllensiefen, who is part of the Music, Mind and Brain research group at Goldsmiths, addresses the cognitive, computational, and neuroscientific bases of musical understanding and behaviour. Since September 2010, he has also been working with the London-based advertising agency DDB UK to explore how music influences emotional advertising.

In a second session we are delighted to have Chris Barton speak. He is the co-founder of Shazam, and came up with the idea back in 1999. With three others, he led the creation of Shazam – from concept, through inventing a new pattern recognition technology, to building and launching the world’s first mobile music recognition service. Today, Shazam has been downloaded more than 500 million times and has more than 100 million monthly active users. Additionally, the innovation is part of the reason why Siri can answer questions like “What is that song?”. Barton still serves on the board of Shazam Entertainment, but has left the operational side of the company to work at Dropbox.

In the session of Reeperbahn Festival and NEXT Barton will explain how music consumption has been changing, and how the music search platform can be used in marketing and advertising.

The list of musicians and artists joining the Reeperbahn Festival is rapidly expanding too. We are very much looking forward to seeing top class performances on different stages in clubs and in the open air around the Reeperbahn.

And don’t forget: Your ticket for NEXT15 will include the Reeperbahn Festival concert and conference programme, too.

]]>http://nextconf.eu/2015/06/joint-sessions-for-next15-and-reeperbahn-festival/feed/0http://nextconf.eu/2015/06/joint-sessions-for-next15-and-reeperbahn-festival/How Moleskine embraces digital in its paper businesshttp://feeds.sinnerschrader.de/~r/NextConference/~3/V08L237ImaU/
http://nextconf.eu/2015/06/moleskine-innovation-digital-transition/#commentsWed, 03 Jun 2015 10:56:12 +0000http://nextconf.eu/?p=30015Moleskin, a maker of exquisite notebooks, has found a practical approach to embracing the digital alongside the physical.

]]>You’d think a company like Moleskine would be struggling in the digital age. The business’s entire reputation is built on beautiful paper notebooks, which seem like a doomed enterprise as everything goes digital.

However, they’ve been really clever in their approach to embracing digital. They sell phone and tablet covers with their distinctive styling. And they’ve had a long-running partnership with notes service Evernote, with Evernote-branded Moleskine notebooks giving you extra Evernote paid time, and a handy way of auto-tagging scanned notes. That partnership was followed by one with Adobe’s Creative Cloud.

Paper aesthetics in a digital app

And now they’re taken a further step in embracing digital: an app for the iPhone – and the Apple Watch. Timepage is a neat and thoughtful little calendar app for people with relatively simple diaries. I’m not a calendar power user by any means, because I don’t spend my life juggling corporate meetings. So the simplicity of an app like this works very well for me.

But more importantly, I think, the fact that it plays so well to Moleskine’s core design values really makes this work as an app itself, and a reminder of the existence of my paper Moleskines.